10 Days on DDP and STUFFED! The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.... WITH PHOTOS

[momtoBrandon&Jacob]

Thanks for calling me childish. That was a nice compliment of you.

As for it smelling like that...it DID. At first we thought someone around us had bad BO, but realized it was the salad.

And yes, everyone had different opinions, what we hated someone else might love, and vice versa. This is why MANY people post MANY reviews.

If I realized I would be called childish for describing a smell, maybe I wouldn't even bother writing these reviews at all.

I really meant no harm. I took the word childish out of my post.

 

[TigerKat]

Enjoying your reviews. It's a shame your DD got sick while in Disney, glad she got well enough to enjoy the rest of her vacation.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

I just remembered it was the Mom's Chicken Dinner I had at the pop food court the night Meg was ill. It was good but TONS AND TONS of food. 3 huge pieces of fried chicken!!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Later that night after ghiradelli, we hit the Pop food court around 10pm. I had a cheese dog and fries and Meg had chicken strips/fries. We got those big yummy cupcakes for dessert, but saved them for the next day.
Good food from here again!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Next day - Jan 10th. It was a really nice hot day, so we took advantage of the weather and when to Typhoon Lagoon. We spent 6 hours there and LOVED it!
For lunch, we grabbed CS from Lowtide Lou's.
I had the chicken wrap and Meg had a hot dog. Both came with a choice of plain chips or cheetos. We got a bag of each to munch on later. For dessert you could get ice cream or big choc chip cookies. We got the cookies.
This food was very very good. The wrap was one of the best I have ever had.
No photos here, I left the camera back in the room by mistake!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

That night we went to Chef Mickey's for a later 8pm dinner. It was super busy, and we arrived at 7:45, and were seated right at 8.
Dinner was really good. We really enjoyed the buffet here. Super great character interaction, and a bonus was we were seated by the window and watched the fireworks!
The prime rib was very good and the dessert bar had too many amazing choices!
This was a 10/10 for us and a total highlight!
No 'food' pictures, but some dessert...

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

The next day - Jan 11th.
We had Cinderella's Royal Table ressies for 8:20am. This is VERY early for us, as we are usually rolling out of bed at 9am! lol. It was the ONLY time available and it took every ounce of strength to get out of bed at 630am!
But...
It was totally worth it!!!
The best part was we had MK all to ourselves it seemed! We walked up mainstreet and only saw one other family, then I was able to get a photo of ONLY meg in front of the castle! It was an incredible photo op!

Once at the restaurant, it was packed. We checked in and had to stand in line for nearly 25 mins for the Cinderella photo. After the photo, Meg got a wand and we were ushered upstairs. Meg is really past the disney princess stage and felt a bit silly with the wand and so on, but we just liked the idea of being 'inside' the castle.
We completely lucked out, as we had a table beside the window, and overlooked fantasyland as we ate! (see photo for our view!).
There was a basket of baked goods on our table, along with a wishing star for Meg. There were croissants, muffins,etc... and they were good. Also a big bowl of mixed fruits awaited us.
Meg opted for the kids meal, which appealed to her more, which was french toast sticks, eggs, bacon,etc...
I had the choice of the healthy or traditional, and chose the traditional. The stuffed french toast was the most delicious thing on earth, and I ordered a second one. Cream cheese filling and blueberry topping - TO DIE FOR!
I also had sausages (didn't eat them), eggs, bacon, and hasbrowns (didn't like them...it was like a mashed hash brown thing).
I had apple juice and coffee and meg drank gallons of the orange juice.
During the meal they gave us a gorgeous pink folder with her Cinderella photo - an 8x10 and 4 4x6's. Really nice touch. It also had a nice 8x10 of the castle. The princess interaction was awkward for Meg. She is at the point where she really doesn't want to sit and chat with them. I think they easily picked up on this and had a quick photo and left us alone. We also felt a bit 'charactered out' at this point. We just wanted to sit and eat and not have to pose for photos. LOL.
We actually skipped our garden grill dinner later on because we didn't want to be bothered with characters again! lol.

Anyway I would say this is a great experience you must try once. Would it have been worth over $100 for us if I had paid OOP? No, not really, but since it was on the DDP I didn't mind. I wouldn't do it again because of Meg's age, but with a younger one it would be more fun. We loved the food and got a kick out of sitting in the castle and next to a window overlooking them testing rides!
It was also early entry day, so after breakfast, we wandered into the parks and hit about 6 rides with no lines! We walked onto peter pan, pooh,etc... with no lines.
This was a VERY MAGICAL morning for us!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Later that day, back at Pop we got ice cream sundaes. This was a good snack credit use, as they were worth 5.99 each!!!
3 scoops of ice cream, hot fudge (other toppings available), whipped cream, nuts and sprinkles too.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

That night we were suppossed to go to Garden Grill, but didn't feel like it. We cancelled and just went to Electric Umbrella in Epcot. We LOVED the food here. Really good and big portions. I had a grilled chicken burger and fries, and Meg had chicken strips/fries. We both got the strawberry cheesecake and fountain pop. Definately a great counter service place. Was fun because we sat outside in the dark and watched the fountain light show!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

The next morning we spent the morning at the resort, swimming and went to the arcade and stuff. We needed some downtime. We had chocolate chip pancakes from Pop foodcourt and they were good, but not 'great'. Meg liked them more than I did. I prefer the waffles over these.
The coffee is just as pathetic as people say. I had a coffee maker in my room that we brought, which I realized was a total lifesaver after trying pop coffee.
If you are a coffee drinker - bring your own coffee maker!!!!

At lunchtime we shared an individual pizza and cheesecake. The pizza here is 'ok' in my opinion. Not the worst, not the best. Its one of those individual taste things. We all have our own opinion on what makes a great pizza.

We left the resort about 3pm and went to Hollywood Studios. We had a 5:00 ADR for Prime Time Cafe. We did a few rides and realized we were starving at 4:30, so went and were checked in early. I loved the atmosphere here. All the retro stuff was fun to look at and Meg kept saying "Oooooooooo can you imagine what this would sell for on ebay?". lol.
Melissa was our server (Aunt) and she was GREAT. She was totally in character the whole time and made it extremely fun. We had a blast here with her. She made one lady wear a dunce cap, and all kinds of funny stuff like that. I felt bad for the other side of the room though, as their server really wasn't into it and didn't do any of the fun stuff really. He really did not have the personality for the job at all. Very shy and quiet.
If you can get Melissa, she is great.
But....the food here WAS TERRIBLE. I had the fried chicken/mashed potatoes and 'greens' which looked like lawn cuttings. I couldn't even bring myself to taste them. The chicken was 'ok', but the potatoes were gross - all thick and stogy and tasted like instant potatoes. Meg had chicken nuggets with grapes and goldfish and said it was 'ok' but not the best.
Dessert was the highlight here. Meg got a kids make your own sundae and I got the brownie sundae. The photo isn't great, but it was INCREDIBLE!!! I ate the whole thing because I didn't eat much dinner. There were m&ms on it and caramel corn too! Super yummy and a must order!!
At the end of our meal, Melissa brought us to go cups of coke and sprite without us even asking!

Food 2/10
Dessert 10/10
Service/Atmosphere 10/10

I would do this again, but order a dinner salad probably.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Next day - Jan 13 - we didn't have any ADRs this day, just doing CS.
We had CS breakfast at Pop - waffles. VERY GOOD!

We went to Typhoon Lagoon again that morning because we had so much fun there before.
Turned out to be a bad idea because a big thunderstorm hit! We got a couple hours worth of fun in before it hit though, and ate lunch in the rain under a canopy. We ate at leaning palms and the food here was good, but not 'great'. It was very edible and nothing wrong with it at all, but wasn't outstanding. I had a cheeseburger/fries and Meg had a hotdog/fries.
We got big cookies for dessert.

With the storm, we headed back to the resort and spent the afternoon watching tv and had a nap.
We went to DTD that night and made Goofys Candy Shop treats. We both got the marshmallows. Its neat because they are on mickey straws to bring home. Very good!
We shopped and took the boat to POFQ (always wanted to check it out) and then went back to Pop and decided to order Pizza. It was ok, but I wouldn't order it again. Just not our type of pizza, but we were tired and sick of walking and filled our tummies that night.

 

[plutosgirl]

These reviews are great!! Thanks....I'm enjoying them.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

The next day, our last day in the parks, we went to 1900 Park Fare for breakfast. LOVED LOVED LOVED the food here. You name the breakfast item, they had it. We saw Mary Poppins and Alice, and the Mad Hatter, and also all the Pooh characters were there. It was a busy place.
We ate so much here and I wish I had room for more. Definately a dining highlight for us and a must do!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Later on, we were a bit hungry and shared a CS meal at Cosmic Rays. We had the 8 piece chicken nuggets with 'chips' - handmade deep fried chips that were soooooooooooo yummy and we are craving them now! Also got the chocolate cake. Would definately eat here again!

Our last TS was Crystal Palace. Unfortunately our last dining selection did not turn out to be a good one for us.
Our ADR was for 5pm, which I figured would be good, so we could be out by 6ish, and find a place for spectromagic and wishes.
We didn't get in until nearly 5:25 and as soon as we walked in, all we could hear were screaming children and NOISE. Of course, this is Disney, and this restaurant is popular, so I just ignored it. If you are looking for a quiet meal, this is NOT the one. Our server was similar to our LTT server. I found it odd that before she would even bring us drinks, she demanded to see our KTTW card to 'prove' we were on the dining plan. She then asked, AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MEAL, how we will be tipping her!!!!! I said cash
Seriously.....she hasn't even gotten us a drink yet and wanted to know HOW we plan on tipping. NOT cool at all!
We didn't like the food here at all. I found it all just gross. The prime rib was good, Meg said the turkey was good, but all the side dishes did not really appeal to me. Didn't like it at all. The desserts did not appeal to us either really, as there was chocolate whisky trifle cake and other things like that. We had ice cream. During dinner, not even half way through, she delivered the bill to our table to sign!!!! Trying to rush us out much? I hadn't even eaten 5 bites of my first plate yet, and I had the bill!
Then she disappeared. Never to be seen again. We had empty drinks the whole time, couldn't get anyone's attention at all. This restaurant is soooooooooo huge and soooooooo crowded its just insane. I have no idea where our server went, but we saw her at the beginning only, and she disappeared.
I did not tip.
We went out still kind of hungry and disappointed, but had a great night and filled up on popcorn!

The next morning we had Pop waffles and packed up to come home

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Final Thoughts:
I felt we had good value for our DDP money. I liked not having that bill at the end of the trip, or carrying cash. I tipped well where it was deserved.
I couldn't imagine eating an appy, full meal, dessert and drink at any meal. The portions are huge. I think 37.99 a day per person to eat is a super deal, and will definately do it again if offered. Yes, it would be nice to have the tips included, but they weren't and our tips for the 2 of us at 18% ran $6-9, so not too bad at all.
I didn't keep receipts, and I didn't compare pricing - we just had fun, ate what we wanted, when we wanted,etc... and didn't think about money the whole time. Normally I could not justify $60 for a buffet meal for 2 of us, or $100 for a breakfast, but with it all pre-paid I didn't even think about prices. We just had a blast and had what we wanted without looking at prices!

 

[sorul82?]

Also, Meg hit it dead on when she said the salad smelled like "smelly armpits". Yes, seriously - the salad smelled like BO!

"Ok, so here is where you write in my tip. These are the recommended amounts, the top one is 18% and the bottom is 20%, most people tip 20%, so just write that amount on this line here and sign"

 

[familyS]

Thanks for writing and posting reviews!

Glad to hear you liked the plan. Sorry to hear about the poor service at LTT and CP.

 

[mom2my3kids]

Tusker house for breakfast looks like fun, we did crystal palace for breakfast last year and it was sooo good. But we are not going to be on the dining plan and want to try a few table service meals. Did they have tons of different offerings for breakfast? I love your reviews, all done in a day, I hate waiting weeks for a review to end.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Yah there was tons and tons of food at Tusker House! Its a must-do!

 

[mom2my3kids]

Thanks I am adding for our breakfast.. Kids will enjoy it..